liljester wrote:I have used the xmas firmware on a couple clocks based on the adafruit board, and love it.
Thank you for the kind words.
liljester wrote:The clocks I am building do not use the clear cases, but wood and aluminum parts. To accommodate those changes, Im not using the side PCB, and I will leave out the photoresistor. To attach my VFD to the board, I am soldering a ribbon cable directly onto the tube with a plug for the board side.
Awesome! I see no problem there as long as the board doesn't get too hot in the case.
liljester wrote:I am not getting a display on my tube. (using a tube that works on the adafruit hardware) The clock beeps on startup, and the buttons make noise, just no display.
An xmas chip that works with a stock Adafruit clock will not work with the xmas hardware revision; the display is driven differently in the two designs. Did you start with the config.h file in the hardware/ directory? If not, try deleting the firmware/config.h file, and copy the hardware/config.h file into the firmware/ directory. Then recompile and reinstall.
liljester wrote:in the picture below, have I soldered the Q4,Q6,Q5, and Q7 wrong/backwards?
These parts appear to be placed correctly.
liljester wrote:Is the side PCB connection wired the same as the adafruit board? From my initial inspection, the side PCBs appear to be wired differently...
The boards are interchangeable and are wired the same in terms of continuity. You are correct that my PCB does run the traces differently to avoid traces too close to the edge of the board. With the Adafruit side boards, the traces run close enough to the edge of the board that chipping the board in the right place can destroy a trace.
liljester wrote:Since my case will not be clear, I will be leaving out the photoresistor. Do I need to make any changes other than in config.h file to accommodate this?
No changes are necessary. You might want to comment out the "#define AUTOMATIC_DIMMER" macro. That removes the automatic dimming code and menu option. If you leave that macro enabled, there's no problem--just a useless menu option for automatic dimming.